Robert Cornelius’ Self-Portrait: The First Ever “Selfie” (1839)

Today the Oxford Dictionaries announced their word of the year for 2013 to be “selfie”, which they define as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.” Although the rampant proliferation of the technique is quite recent, the “selfie” itself is far from being a strictly modern phenomenon. Indeed, the photographic self-portrait is surprisingly common in the very early days of photography exploration and invention, when it was often more convenient for the experimenting photographer to act as model as well. In fact, the picture considered by many to be the first photographic portrait ever taken was a “selfie”. The image in question was taken in 1839 by an amateur chemist and photography enthusiast from Philadelphia named Robert Cornelius. Cornelius had set his camera up at the back of the family store in Philadelphia. He took the image by removing the lens cap and then running into frame where he sat for a minute before covering up the lens again. On the back he wrote “The first light Picture ever taken. 1839.”

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A late 16th-century Dutch print depicting a female personification of the continent America, engraved by Flemish designer and engraver Adriaen Collaert after a design by …Continued

First Night Design

Handsome young man, too!

Michelle Kirkwood

Yeah, not bad looking for a 19th-century midwestern dude! Would be cool to see what his descendants (if he had any) think of this pic!

First Night Design

Yes! He looks a little like a cross between a young Tom Berenger & Heath Ledger.

April McCool

He’s not a midwesterner! Didn’t you read the article. He’s from Philadelphia and buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery.

bruno

qué guapo! (handsome)

Karen ann Donnachie

Oh For The Love of Selfies.
I’m sorry to object, but while yes, this image of Robert Cornelius may be the first American photographic self-portrait, and worthy of much attention, it is not a selfie.
The selfie has established itself as its own discrete genre of image, it is formally distinct from previous forms of self-representation in its impulse, technique, delivery and consumption. This image is as much a selfie as Durer’s renaissance self-portraits in oil.

Friknik

No body gives a f*ck. It’s an overly narcissistic act. PERIOD. You’re making it sound like science or art terminology. Get a life…

lily thibert

Yes That is true but this is with a camera its considered phototagraphy while with oils it would be more of a painting

Karen ann Donnachie

My point is that the term ‘selfie’ should not be applied to just any photographic self-portrait, it is a genre specific to this century. The selfie, unlike any preceeding form of photographic self-portraiture is necessarily networked, it is created with the distribution and replication (audience) in mind. It is an act of belonging.

Bob Wager

You’re wrong. selfie is a selfie is a selfie. whether you attach your phone to an and of a stick you hide up your ass or it is a Polaroid or a photo booth or the new “Selfie Station!” it is STILL taking one’s own photograph. Whether you share the POS or not has nothing to do with it. Selfie is all about ME, not about US. They are SELF PORTRAITS. Shortened to SELFIE so that stunted intellects can believe they are part of some new movement without having to look up self-portrait on google.

kelly blak moffat

wow this is amazing

awesomeness

He messed up this generation!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol!!!!

David Arturo Rodriguez

jajajajjajajajaja xDDDD

Andrew Sneddon

This is not a selfie. Selfie’s, genuine selfie, are hand held shots of oneself. Taking a snap of yourself through a mirror is not a selfie. Setting the camera to take the shot while you sit, is not a selfie, narcissistic, look at me, snaps aren’t selfie’s either.

A selfie is a mindful documentary photo of one’s self, of a time and place.

The first genuine selfie (had no name at the time) was in the early 1990’s. The shot was taken by a Pentax K1000 single reflex camera, f2, 15th of a second, 400asa black & white 35mm film. 400asa. A Selfie is a conscious hand-held self-portrait documenting one’s time and place at any given time.

The first image is as formally described. The second first double selfie 1991. Third 1992. Forth image 1993. Fifth image was taken in Griffith NSW, in an orange orchid on the 11th of September 2001 commonly known as 9/11.

These are how the creator, of this type of image, intended them to look, place and time. It has become corrupted by the ease of digital photography, morphing from the original time-and-place self-portrait, to the ever narrowing view of unimaginative narcissist, with no style, class or presence of any artistic temperament.

Aggelos Agnostic

That’s so ironic,the fact that the first selfie ever taken by a person was by a pioneer of photography one art of the nine good arts(architecture,sculpture,paint,poetry,music,dance,cinema,photography,comics)and nowadays is used to be taken by instagram and facebook sluts! what a waste!robert cornelius would be shamed about it!

Joelle Copty

Very handsome indeed ; ) , do I see clearly? he has his hand stick into his jacket… was it a technique the fact of taking a pictures with a hand sticked into the upper left side of a jacket?.. like Napoleón? ; ) ; ) hahaha..

IcouldBNE1

I thought he might be smoking a cigarette. He seems to be holding something white with smoke raising from it.

Nora L

It is actually quite likely that the honour for the first photographic self-portrait should go to French independent discoverer of photography Hippolyte Bayard, who had been experimenting with a paper-based photographic process of his own invention some time before the daguerrotype process was made public (and thus implicitly before it reached the US). In his archives, preserved at the SFP (Société française de photographie), there are self-portraits of his from 1839 which pre-date the photograph you discuss in this article. Here is a link, unfortunately in French:
http://culturevisuelle.org/icones/2865

Mario Martinazzi

Wrong, the first selfie ever was made by Bayard on the 21st of june 1839. Bayard was already the first photographer who made positive copies on paper, but it wasn’t so good in PR. In fact, nobody knows him even now

Bob Wager

Do we know the 1st guy that “discovered” fire and its beneficial uses? NO. Do we know Bobby Flay? YES!

Karan Veer Singh

i had my selfie in 2008….

Bob Wager

I discovered my selfie WAY before that 🙂

Roger mccoy

A selfie is a picture taken by a mobile device such as a mobile phone or camera that is held in the hand, or attacked to and extending device that is held in the hand of the person taking the selfie. The selfie exploded when the I-phone came out with the reverse camera allowing the selfie taker see themselves before taking the picture, allowing them to pose the way they want. Before, it was difficult and took many tries to get the right picture. So, there is no way that “Roberts Cornelius”s” picture could be considered a selfie. Either could a web cam picture be considered a selfie. It is not held in the hand, nor is it mobile. So, stick that in your pipe and smoke it “The Public Domain Review.” My name is Roger McCoy and I know for sure that, at least in Oak Park Ca. I have not found a selfie with a time stamp that is before my first selfie.” Until I do, I Claim being the 1st person in Oak Park, CA. to take a selfie.

This is on the cover of my copy of Wuthering Heights. Philadelphia eh? He ain’t no Heathcliff!

Fernando

I do believe that this first called Self Portrait is just a Portrait not a Selfie, Selfie is a modern concept, can’t be used to that photo.

Víctor

Well, I read below about selfies and the last one picture isn’t it that, it´s just a self portrait. The first of all it´s the “selfie” have to be uploaded at social network, isn’t it?

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